During the first quarter of a game between Italy and Georgia on Friday, Andrea Bargnani suffered a left ankle injury. He left the game and underwent an MRI. According to Sportando, the injury isn’t serious and won’t prevent him from playing for the Italian national team at next month’s EuroBasket tournament:

Andrea Bargnani’s ankle injury is not serious, according to sources. The Italian big man left the game against Georgia early in first half and did not return. Bargnani will regularly play at Eurobasket with Italian National Team.

Bargnani, who signed a minimum deal with the Nets in July after two disappointing years with the Knicks, hasn’t been able to stay healthy for several years. The last time he played more than 60 games in a season was 2010-11, and he played just 29 last year in New York. The Nets won’t need to rely on him for big minutes, having re-signed Brook Lopez and Thaddeus Young and added Thomas Robinson.

Last season, the Brooklyn Nets were 24th in the NBA in pace (possessions per game) under old-school coach Lionel Hollins. Before than Hollins had been in Memphis and when he took them over for the 2009-10 season they were a top 10 team in pace, but by the time he was let go they were dead last in the league. He’s not seen as a running coach.

But the Nets are going to run this year if you ask Thaddeus Young.

Young was on SiriusXM NBA Radio and talked about the Nets playing faster this season under Hollins.

"We have a lot of guys who can play multiple positions, we're going to be athletic & get up and down the floor." –@yungsmoove21 on his #Nets

Look at the Brooklyn Nets likely starting five — Jarrett Jack, Bojan Bogdanovic, Joe Johnson, Thaddeus Young, Brook Lopez — and you see a group that can get out and run. Reserves such as Shane Larkin, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, and even Andrea Bargnani (sprinting to the arc) would love to play more in transition. They are not going to be the Warriors, but the Nets don’t need to be slow.

But we’ll see what Hollins has in store for them. If he wants to pound it in to Lopez in the post or at the elbow, things will not be fast.

Fresh off a four-year, $84 million deal with the Spurs, LaMarcus Aldridge has switched representation. He was the biggest free agent of the summer, and the most high-profile player to change teams. He’s long been a client of Arn Tellem, the influential agent with Wasserman Media Group. But Eurobasket.com’s David Pick reports that Aldridge will now be represented by Excel Sports Management, whose roster features Kevin Love, Blake Griffin and Tyson Chandler:

Back in June, Tellem — whose client list includes Anthony Davis, Al Horford, both Gasol brothers and Brook Lopez — announced he was leaving Wasserman, and the agent world, to take a job with the Pistons on the business side. Aldridge’s defection is the first sign of a ripple effect created by Tellem’s departure. He is an enormously influential agent with deep ties to a lot of players. Now that he’s out of the game, don’t be surprised if more of his clients jump ship from Wasserman over the next year.

Thompson and the Cavaliers had reached an agreement early in free agency that was believed to have been centered on a five-year deal worth some $80 million. The problem with doing a deal at that number is that virtually everyone in Thompson’s talent range got substantially more, most receiving the NBA maximum salary, some for less years, but most for the same year one dollar amount.

Thompson’s camp pulled back from the $80 million number, wanting the Cavs to step up with more based on what virtually everyone else in Thompson’s peer range got.

I’m not sure who Thompson considers his peers, but I place him solidly behind Marc Gasol, LaMarcus Aldridge, Kevin Love, DeAndre Jordan, Greg Monroe, Draymond Green, Brook Lopez, Paul Millsap and Tim Duncan in the next group of big-man free agents.

Does that warrant more than the $16 million per season the Cavaliers reportedly offered?

Thompson might think he’s in the same group as Monroe (three-year max contract) and Green (five years, $82 million), but he’s not as good as those two. They deserve to be paid more than Thompson.

But deserve has only so much to do with it.

Thompson holds major leverage. If he takes the qualifying offer and leaves next summer, the Cavaliers won’t have the cap flexibility to find a comparable replacement. They can sign Thompson only because they have his Bird rights. That won’t be the case with outside free agents.

The Thunder were in the same boat with Kanter, which is why they matched his max offer sheet from the Trail Blazers. Thompson should point to that situation for comparison. The Cavaliers, though, would probably tell Thompson to bring them an offer sheet, like Kanter did with Oklahoma City.

But Thompson has even more leverage. He shares an agent, Rich Paul, with LeBron James. Cleveland surely wants to keep LeBron happy, and LeBron wants Thompson back.

Thompson might get more than $80 million. I wouldn’t be surprised if he got his max ($94,343,125 over five years). It just won’t be because his on-court peers all got that much. The max-level free agents – with the exception of Kanter – are a class above in actual ability.

But that Kanter comparison works for Thompson, and he and Paul should hammer it until the Cavaliers relent. No need to bring up that Kanter signed well after Thompson’s talks with Cleveland broke down. This is only minimally a discussion about logic and production.

It’s mostly about leverage, and no matter what flawed viewpoints got us here, Thompson still has leverage.

Moreover, various sources inside the Nets have suggested that the departure of D-Will is likely to help Johnson rebound. It was no secret that Brooklyn’s Backcourt didn’t get along….

One insider, asked after the buyout if the Nets were still pursuing a Johnson trade, firmly said no. He volunteered there was probably no one more pumped about the buyout than Johnson. “I am sure Joe will have a tremendous season,” he added with a smile.

It’s also the last year of Johnosn’s contract, his play this year will set the tone for what he gets paid next summer — which will be less than the $24.9 million he is owed this year. Johnson was solid last season, averaging 14.4 points per game, hitting 35 percent from three, and with a true shooting percentage pf 52.3 percent right near the league average. In the playoffs, he averaged 16.5 points per game.

His massive salary, by the way, is the other key reason the Nets didn’t move Johnson — that’s a lot of money to move. Teams willing to take it on were going to want to send players and contracts back that were going to last beyond just one season. The Nets didn’t want that.

What they want is to get out of the tax and spend money on a few quality but not max players, not one superstar.

But that’s next summer. First comes a season where we will see what Jarrett Jack can do for them at the point, and if just re-signed Thaddeus Young and Brook Lopez can stay healthy and take a step forward.